On My Terms and Conditions: A True Story

By Rita S Varma

This is the true story of Munias makeover to Aarti and that of Aartis transform to the worldly wise Aarti. Of surviving odds to reclaim lost ground to survive strife and supersede supplant surpass and succeed. Not at all costs. But on her terms and on her conditions, industriously.
For her work was worship. Her work had taken her places and would take her forward and further she believed.
The unlettered aimed high with ambition loftier than the learned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Jul 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482850147

Rita S Varma

Rita S. Varma is an engineer and a novelist by choice. She has two titles, “Sunshine Mist and the Rainbow” and “On My Terms and Conditions.”

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Copyright © 2015 by Rita S Varma.

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Contents

Dedicated to

Acknowledgement

Trailer

First Half

Interval

Second Half

Endnotes

The true story of Munia’s makeover to Aarti. And that of Aarti’s transform to the worldly wise Aarti. Of surviving odds to reclaim lost ground to survive strife and supersede supplant surpass and succeed. Not at all costs. But on her terms and on her conditions, industriously.

For her work was worship. Her work had taken her places and would take her forward and further she believed.

The unlettered aimed high with ambition loftier than the learned.

Dedicated to

All women who triumphed against the odds.

Acknowledgement

To Time

To Almighty

To Family

To Aarti

Trailer

T his story walked up to me one hazy afternoon. Her timing could not have been better, it was perfect. I had the time to listen to her and she loved to talk, to the extent that if I interrupted her with some of my adventure, she would be visibly annoyed and sometimes had the abruptness to cut me off. Suffice to say she was adorable and a delight to listen too. She was illiterate but illustrated wisdom, she was uneducated but full of knowledge. Ladies and gentlemen I introduce you here to our heroine Aarti.

Slowly, as the days went by listening to her and as I got to know her and appreciate the woman she was, I came to value the fact that she opened up to me instantly, even as I was trying to understand her better. If only I had listened to my mother and learnt to read and write she protested one day. What would you do then I cajoled her, you are leading a good life. I would have written my life story she said simply, raising her eyebrows and stressing on the word life. And, she continued I would put my name and family address at the end of the story. Really, why would you do that I insisted? So that all can know it’s a true story, I tell. Does your story have Masala I enquired plainly? Yes yes she expostulated glibly, plenty of Masala is there. I assured her, taking some pride in myself even though I may have doubted her then, for I said okay then one day I shall write your story. Fine, I’ll narrate and you write it, she said. Both of us had merrily laughed off at the idea at the time. We both knew we were both saying what we were saying for the sake of saying. We were both sizing up each other at that stage.

I was reminded of the time, years ago in the tiny town of Lonavala. There one day, as the sun shone up after days of lashing rain, my neighbour and I got talking across the hedge. The clouds and the mist had evaporated, so the Duke’s Nose, the vertical hillock at some distance was detectable after long. We were young and gregarious then. She had stitched a nice frock for her daughter, while complimenting her I mentioned that she could perhaps have done this like that, suggesting an alteration. Impressed she said, you know I can stitch but cannot imagine the patterns. And I can imagine the patterns but place a sewing machine before me and I will run faster than a sprinter. We had both laughed out loud then, agreeing on a joint venture. Traversing through life we do come across people we take instant liking to. We consider things together, while we know in our hearts we shall never endeavour them. But at that moment, when they occurred we were both really committed. It’s just that the school bus had arrived then and the children had taken preference. The venture lost amidst the mist. Such things happen to all of us. So when it happened again I did not place much value to it nor did Aarti.

But casually she started spending more time with me, mostly narrating her day and generally lounging around. That was when she started impressing me and talking to me in great detail. Sometimes on purpose I would ask her to relate some of the incident again to my daughter’s as I tallied the occurrence with her initial narration. I was completely wrong in my assessment of her, her story did not have Masala but it was liberally sprinkled with Garam Masala – spicy hot and sour. I did consider then to name the working title - spicy hot and sour. But the moment I typed them they occurred to resemble ‘sunshine mist and the rainbow’ and immediately my creative skills came to the fore with a warning, the yellow triangle with an exclamation mark, and denied it vehemently. Darn I wondered do I have any liberty here or am I just to labour as per the desires of the artistic.

She was a workaholic. She would be like a pundit without his vedas if she was without some. She preferred instant appreciation on accomplishment of a task was very evident. For if one overlooked to do so she would ask for a response. To anyone’s delight all work would be done with utmost diligence. She was fiery she was flamboyant.

Very early on in her life she established the fact that her conditions were grim and gloomy. She may be born into severe conditions but she vowed not to die in a state of whimper. Rote hue aate hain sab hasta hua jo jayega. (everyone arrives into this world crying but the one who shall depart from it smiling.) I suggested, she chuckled yes yes what a nice film. There was this dance Rekha had in the film. Now I am used to everyone across the board gush about Amitabh Bachchan when the superhit film Muqqadar ka Sikandar is mentioned. And she was so devoted to her choice of Rekha ji it pleased the writer in me. She was not a stereotype.

First Half

T hat Munia as a young Aarti was known was going to lead a dramatic life was evident to her mother even before she learnt to utter the famous words maa-mother. For as a toddler she had her father stand behind the open wooden cage of the courts, on charges. Her mother recounted this to her.

Her father Babu as he was called by his children owned and ran a cycle repair shop. Eerie and very very peculiar I wondered. So would some of my readers, for my first novel had Sayyed owning and running a cycle repair shop too. That was imaginative this was for real. When those words were inventively written I had not set eyes on Aarti nor was she anywhere close-by. Could Aarti somehow be in the know of my manuscript which was in its final stages of print? Could some of my notes have made their way to her I wondered. She was unread unlettered but was clever ambitious and honed the knife blade of her instincts of survival on the stone of time. That is when it dawned, why I was unnecessarily stressing over fiction.

This brought me to another scenario. What if she were to accuse me of say plagiarising? For soon enough every now and then some very subtle semblance and similitude seemed to suggest it-self and sprinkle it-self as we proceed and be detectable to the most discerning reader. And therein lay the essence of beauty of this tale. Not exactly a déjà vu kind of a feeling but the merging of miniscule facts with the fiction can be felt throughout. Fiction it seems to me is born out of the writer-author. So in that sense it’s totally correct to say that some of the parent’s expressions and experiences are bound to seep into or slip by either noticed or unnoticed into the hard-bound. The pearls that are strung together to get the sum total of any writer shall definitely have some of the beads that are bound to showcase themselves in the writings.

This also led me to reflect about why in the first place I had based my character Sayyed such. Early influences, was the answer I received on juggling my feelings. My school bus arrived at the stop early so we could reach school 15 km away at Sadar Jabalpur, in time. We were just two of us. My elder sister and me and Laakhan Singh my father’s trusted peon who escorted us to the bus stop. Apart from us was the sole cycle repairman under the huge tree, who tended to early morning commuters to the Gun Carriage Factory on one hand and the Ordnance factory on the other. Both names self evident of the product manufactured therein. Government Engineering College colony, the colony we resided in lay someplace in between the two factories. He was a very systematic man with neatly lined tools, glue that smelled divine, emery board that resembled the school blackboard duster, a pail filled with water a trunk in which he stored the spare-parts and of course the air pump strategically placed and leaning on a stand.

Oh yes be assured I did try my hands on the pump and after the initial free-flowing attempts the pressure became unmanageable for me. We were skinny sisters. You need to eat more Laakhan Singh would prod. So this was how the character of Sayyed was born. Strange, that I had not given it so much thought during its conceptualisation. Also it was no wonder that Sayyed set up shop at Sadar Bazaar in Delhi. It was also no wonder that the gate, on which the children took turns to swing-on in my first-written, was the colony gate on which we swung as we awaited for the bus to arrive.

She was born into a large balanced family, consisting of 6 brothers and 6 sisters. She stood at number 8 if one counted from the eldest with 4 siblings younger to her. One day while she was divulging her hearts contents out, I questioned her on what was her very earliest of thoughts and remembrances? Taken aback by my interruption she visibly adjusted her thoughts from the barge of her convey. She was quick to supplement within moments, give her the bait and she would always fall for it, such a dear she is I never failed to appreciate the fact. But her haphazard thoughts had to be curbed and curtailed when they became a hazard to the narration. One can safely say that if the writer’s block is a writer’s fear then the raving protagonist her / his trepidation.

Like the popular news-reader Arnab Goswami she hesitated just for that minimalistic moment and uttered Rekha ke jaise banne ka showk tha. Well, all my life expectations went for a loss or were it better to say that they went for a huge toss. Now who can, how can, you I or anyone, think of a person who can claim that their very early memories was craving to be like Rekha? I did not want ambiguity in her tale so I quizzed her sharply, are you watching any Tv serials soaps or films and getting inspired by them? Aree no, she said a little surprised a little offended. I left it at that but made a mental note that the query needs to addressed again, maybe she did not get me right maybe she wanted to impress with her tale maybe she thought her answer would impact the reader.

But I was not going to let go, off the hook, my treasured catch of the day too. So a little later I prodded her back to the topic of Rekha ji. You wanted to imitate Rekha, fine what next? Next I wondered what is to be done what can be done to be like her, she supplemented pleased as a punch. Fashion, retorted